


whispers

by ichidou



Series: Anamnesis (one-shot collection) [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-09
Updated: 2011-06-09
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ichidou/pseuds/ichidou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wash heals up after South's betrayal. Set between <em>Recovery One</em> and <em>Reconstruction</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	whispers

They’re talking about him again.

It’s never anyone in particular -- whenever Wash turns to look, everyone goes quiet, conversation dying mid-sentence as they pretend there’s nothing out of the ordinary. He feels stares on his back, but no one seems to want to meet his eyes when he approaches them. They don’t come near him, as if what’s wrong with him will rub off on them if they get too close.

He never catches more than a few words here and there, but he doesn’t need to when they’re all saying the same thing.

_there goes the lunatic_

He ignores them. He’s had a lot of practice. In the beginning, it was because he couldn’t hear anything past the voices in his head, and now -- well, he’s grown to like silence and solitude and what little peace of mind he can get. They don’t bother him, and he doesn’t have to pretend to care enough to go through the motions of meaningless pleasantries.

It’s not as bad, this time. He’s not locked away in a room with no key, drowning in an endless sea of memory, unsure if he’ll ever find his way back out. They don’t let him out often, insisting that he needs to _stay_ and _rest_ and _just let the drugs do their work, agent washington, everything will be fine_ but he’s much better now than he was when he got here and exercise helps his body get back into shape. It’s nice to wander out to the roof of the medical bay and just look out at the view and listen to the wind.

From the roof, he can see repairs being made to buildings in almost every direction, and he can’t help but find it strange -- once a structure falls, there’s no time to go back and fix it, because if they’re that close it’s time to run, time to get out before they glass the planet and it’s all over. He wonders if this is peace, and he supposes it is on a universal scale, but down here, where it matters -- it’s not over.

To him, it feels like it’s taken too long to get back to the point where he can get up and walk around. The doctors tell him he never should have survived that shot to the spine, that if he hadn’t had the healing unit running and buffering his shields it would have gone straight through and left him paralyzed. He wonders if that wouldn’t have been better, if he could have been discharged and forgotten everything

_(_ but you have to remember _)_

They tell him the war’s over, that it ended while he was recuperating. He should be happier, he thinks, he should be ecstatic that it’s all over and Earth -- _home_ \-- is safe and sound, that humanity’s going to survive after all. That it’s all over.

It’s not over yet. Not for him.

The Counsellor’s more insistent on their little meetings now. He calls it therapy, but Wash considers it a waste of time, and even when he doesn’t say it he knows it’s coming across loud and clear. How is he coping, they ask, with the knowledge that his last mission was nothing more than a set-up to get rid of him and sweep it under the rug? How does he feel about his partner turning on him to save herself? What’s it like to know that it’s because of him one of the precious few A.I.s left in the program is in the hands of a volatile, unrated soldier?

The questions he’s asked never get that deep, limited to the bland _and how are you feeling today, agent washington? i hear you’re up and about now_ and _why don’t you tell us how it happened in your own words_ and _but how does that make you feel?_ They want the real answers, they want to know what he’s hiding, but he gives as little as he gets. He’s used to the games they play, trying to find out just what went wrong with him without admitting any fault _(_ they’re liars no one knows what they did just me only me you have to do something you have to _)_ and he says nothing, even when it says everything.

As much material as he provides for the rumor mill by virtue of simply being there, it’s inevitable that something else will come to replace it eventually, and he’s glad when it does. There are still whispers around him, but this time they’re about the soldiers at Valhalla -- _did you hear they all killed themselves, one by one, they say a demon took them over, maybe they just went crazy, like_ \-- well, maybe they don’t leave him alone that much.

He doesn’t care to gossip, but his curiosity is piqued from the snatches of half-truths he hears throughout the program, and even more so when they release him from medical and send him back to his bunk. He’d heard about the agents who’d gotten taken out, but it’s not until he’s back among them he finds out who -- Recovery Six and Nine, late additions to the Recovery team after One and Two had their falling out, he’s told by an eager recruit, _and they say recovery one shouldn’t even be here anymore, he’s the one who went nuts_ \---

It doesn’t help his reputation when he decks the kid, but he gave up on _that_ a long time ago.

He’s still on medical leave, so he’s not considered for the troops sent to Valhalla to investigate. He’s stuck watching and waiting and listening, because there’s nothing better to do, not like this. He knows what he needs to do _(_ you’re the only one who can _)_ but he has to be careful, precise, _perfect_ if he’s going to pull it off. He can plan (and he does, plan after plan after plan, he knows how to get in he knows where to go) but they can’t suspect him until it’s too late. They have to trust him, even though they know he can’t be trusted, not after what they did to him. Not after Epsilon.

But there’s only so much they can get out of the regular troops. Half of them are just a hair above being sent to the simulation bases, while the rest are those who came close to being chosen for Freelancers, only to be turned back when they weren’t up to it. What they need is a Freelancer, one they can use, one who’s even willing to be used up to a point because it falls in line with what he wants.

He’s the only one for the job, really.

On more than one occasion, he’s wondered if the Counsellor is even capable of anything other than that patronizing smile and falsely pleasant manner, as if he were _really_ someone you could tell all your problems to, a kind ear. It works on the trooper -- Henderson, that was it, the coward who ran away and hid and lived to tell the tale, or so the story goes. He’d be surprised how many of the rumors are right, but the truth has a way of getting around.

The Counsellor’s attention is focused entirely on the simulation trooper, but Wash knows he’s not happy to have him here. He’d rather keep him behind closed doors for further evaluation, more time to try and get something solid out of him. But once again, they need him. There’s a certain comfort to being back in his armor, back to being a Freelancer and not just the freak they let out of lockdown.

They’re leading Henderson away, and he’d feel some pity for the barrage of questioning he’s going to get if he didn’t have to step up and face the Counsellor himself. This is different from their little therapeutic sessions, it’s a mission that’s starting off with numerous causalities, and yet it’s all the same. He’s back behind the mask his helmet provides, and it’s easy to lie for himself and hide everything he has to, hide how much he despises everything this project stands for, hide how much he’d like to take a page out of Omega’s book and--

No. There’s a way to do this, a _right_ way, and he’ll find it.

“Agent Washington, what do you make of all this?”

He steps forward, and the voices go quiet.


End file.
